Hey!
I'm a 31 year old woman with no official diagnosis for HF yet who plans to get a brainscan very soon.
So I experience lots of anxiety due to daily obligations, working in a job I dislike because it's all centered around customer service and where I live we don't have many job options other than that anyway..and recently I begun driving lessons. Today was my second lesson and if I ever had even 1 doubt about most likely being autistic, driving lessons ensured that I'd have no more doubts.
I have very poor coordination/motor and multitasking skills and despite being very good at learning things theoretically, I'm awful at practical driving. I know it's only been my second lesson but I know it will take me a long time to properly learn. I can't seem to be able to pay attention to 2-3 things at once. I've been experiencing severe anxiety and stress since the moment we begun the lessons. Two days ago prior to our 1st lesson, I was sick to my stomach. The next morning I woke up with intense upper stomach pains..to the point where I actually thought I might have gotten sick with gastroenteritis. I experience intense somatic symptoms when in stress and the more stress I have, the more sick I get. On top of that, I became 31 a few days ago and I'm already on a total burnout in my life. I've been job hopping for years, hoping to find a job that I will at least be able to endure for a while but to no success (one job has been more stressful than the other), have been masking myself since childhood because where I live, people generally don't know much about such conditions or when hearing about autism they picture the standard LF autistic person that gets ''meltdowns'' in public or just doesn't understand much.
Most psychologists aren't experts on recognising HF autism, let alone in adult women, so I've never even bothered with that (that's one of the reasons I want to get a brainscan and be finally done with this) and I wouldn't even bother addressing my suspicions or difficulties with anyone here because they'd simply not even understand and things would only get severely awkward for them and for me. I haven't met anyone else like me here, my only way of ''relating'' with other people is through the web forums and sites. I've been on a steady burnout for a while but somehow the driving lessons have kinda pushed me to the edge of it. After so many years of coping, masking and going through everything ALONE and completely unsupported..I'm freaking exhausted. Of all and everything. I feel like I can't even handle stress anymore..like literally can't. I'm on the edge of this. I think any more stress than this and I'll end up in the freaking hospital. I wanna get these stupid lessons over with and be done with everything because honestly..I feel like a robot.
I wake up, go to work and mindlessly ''clock in'' just to get the shift over and be able to pay my bills and basically go through life almost without anything that really makes me comfortable or free to be me. The level of tiredeness I feel is something I can't even put in words. I keep imagining myself fleeing from here and ending up on a bloody mountain with a tiny cabin and just living there away from everything. Everyone around me seems to constantly ''expect'' something from me. My environment expects me to do things because I'm ''smart''. My sisters expect me to help them with their kids (I like kids but from a distance..I can't stand being with them for long periods, I have literally NO energy for kids), my parents expect me to (at some point) have a relationship and possibly even kids (people around me have started giving me strange looks for the fact that I'm 31 and with no relationship yet), my driving instructor expects me to learn how to coordinate myself from the first lessons because that's the ''norm'' he's used to..and my brain works at an extremely speed daily, trying to figure out how to pack ALL of these things while at the same time being a proper adult, taking care of my obligations AND managing to do all these without having a complete breakdown! And all of these...on my own. Always on my own. I don't know what it's like in the UK but in the close knit community I live in and in my area, there is no knowledge or support for HF autism adults. I don't even know where and how to begin with this. I've struggled with suicidal ideations my whole life and even though I'm not suicidal and I actually LOVE living and would love living my life even more if I could do it by being ME, stress and anxiety often trigger these thoughts and fantasies on me. I have extreme escape fantasies and they often include that..the ultimate escape. I'm not worried about them because in reality I'd never want to do that, it's more of an outlet for my frustration and depression periods. I just don't know how to go on in life anymore. I don't want to believe that my whole life will be like this. I can't live just to be constantly stressed and suffer from anxiety like this..I don't know how much more of this I can actually physically and mentally handle :/
